LETTER: EU vote will have huge impact on NHS

Published:18:30Friday 20 May 2016

There is a lot of controversy concerning the effect that the proposed TTIP (TransAtlantic Trade & Investment Partnership) with the EU and USA will have on the UK’s NHS. But where the NHS is not exempt from the treaty and where it is basically for corporate entities to trade with each other. Some say that the NHS will be made a special case by the EU and will not be allowed to be privatised. But others say that it will, as the EU never gives long-term guarantees. Indeed the power to exclude is not in the hands of British politicians, but the EU and they will determine this fact after the TTIP is signed. But one thing is for sure, if the UK was out of the EU, the NHS would predominantly stay in public hands. The reason, it would be political suicide for any political party if Cameron or say even Corbyn, decided that the NHS was to be privatised. For if any government did this, the British people would never forgive them and that political party would most probably be in the political wilderness for a very long time, indeed and possibly never return. Therefore it appears that the only way to conserve the NHS in public hands, is to vote ‘out’ on June 23 2016, as left to the EU’s TTIP dictates, the NHS would in all probabilities eventually be privatised. For the EU-US trade treaty makes it very clear, ‘monopolies’ just cannot exist and where the NHS is the largest monopoly of services within one sector of the EU by far. Therefore the British people will have to think very carefully when they vote, as there are all manner of life-changing issues to take into account with the referendum vote and where the survival of the NHS, just being one. The question is therefore, do the people want to keep the NHS as it currently is, or do they want the NHS to be ultimately privatised. That is a big decision in itself, as we all know.